Ethel Greenglass Rosenberg (1915—1953) and Julius Rosenberg (1918—1953) were American Communists who were thrust into the world spotlight when they were tried, convicted, and executed for spying for the Soviet Union. The safety of their convictions remains a contentious issue.
The FBI website is as good as any for an official account of the case of Ethel & Julius Rosenberg:
In the summer of 1949, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) learned that the secret of the construction of the atom bomb had been stolen and turned over to a foreign power . . . Interrogation of Greenglass and his wife, Ruth, resulted in admissions of espionage activity under the instructions of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, brother-in-law and sister, respectively, of David Greenglass . . . On August 17, 1950, a Federal grand jury in the Southern District of New York returned an indictment alleging 11 overt acts. Julius Rosenberg, Ethel Rosenberg, and Anatoli Yakovlev were charged with violation of Title 50, U.S. Code, section 34 . . . Julius and Ethel Rosenberg testified and denied all espionage allegations against them . . . On cross-examination, they were asked questions as to their Communist affiliations but refused to answer on the grounds of self-incrimination . . . On March 28, 1951, counsel for each side summed up their respective case to the jury. On March 29, 1951, the jury rendered a verdict of guilty against the three defendents, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, and Morton Sobell . . . On April 5, 1951, the following sentences were imposed: Julius Rosenberg, death, such sentence to be carried out during the week of May 21, 1951; Ethel Rosenberg, death, such sentence to be carried out during the week of May 21, 1951; and Morton Sobell, imprisonment for a term of 30 years . . . At 8:05 pm on June 19, 1953, Julius Rosenberg was executed at Sing Sing Prison, Ossining, New York. At 8:15 pm on the same date, Ethel Rosenberg was executed at Sing Sing Prison.
After their conviction there was an international outcry and appeal for clemency. The FBI still claims that this was ‘a highly artificial affair, and was carefully promoted rather than a spontaneous public reaction’. Others would claim the opposite. The truth is murky but lies somewhere in between: many people (including Pope Pius XII, who I find difficult to envisage as a particularly convincing fellow-traveller) reacted to this case in genuine revulsion against the atomic bomb and/or the sentence; equally, the communist party did indeed organise its members and supporters in letter writing and picketing campaigns.
Information that has come to light since their execution (the defection of Burgess & Maclean, the VENONA project documents, statements from ex-KGB officers, David Greenglass’s admission in 2001 that he falsely implicated Ethel) indicates: that the Russians got the critical atomic bomb information through other sources; that Julius Rosenberg was probably a Russian spy (though not necessarily guilty of the specific acts of espionage for which he was convicted); and that Ethel was probably innocent.
Nikita Khrushchev’s posthumous praising of the pair for ‘their very significant help in accelerating the production of our atomic bomb’ may well have been deliberate disinformation to protect other sources: in any case it should probably be treated with the same degree of (dis)trust as we give to the utterances of any politician.